I'm Gonna Love You Through It
by ScarlettInkwell
Summary: A slightly sad Zabby oneshot (?) sparked off by the Martina McBride song of the same name. Kind of stemmed off from the Let Me Back In Universe, maybe sometime farther down the line or perhaps in the past before all the drama of LMBI. Includes: Gibbs and an OC, also mentions of Shannon and Kelly. Oh, and Joann.


Ziva stepped tentatively into the doctor's office, her breathing shallow and rattling in her chest. That sterile white room with its cold surfaces and disinfectant scent permeated the haze that had settled in her mind since she had first numbly picked up the phone to set up the appointment.

This was it.

"Hello Miss David, if you would just take a seat on the chair over here, we can begin."

Ziva's eyes surveyed the room swiftly, just as she had been trained to for so many years. There was a single picture frame on a white table. A red-haired woman in her forties that sat in a swivel chair in a lab coat and scrubs. A small well-polished silver locket resting in the hollow of the woman's clavicle.

"Thank you, Doctor McFadden, but it is Dah-veed. I am Israeli." Then, gasping in a breath that shook her ribcage, she bit the bullet and dove right in, "So, what is the diagnosis?"

The redheaded Scotswoman reached into the drawer underneath her table and drew out a large manila envelope. Inside held the results of multiple tests and several x-rays. Results that she never wanted to have to present to patients.

"Well, according to these scans and tests, we've caught it a little late, but it is not yet too far gone. We might be able treat it, probably."

"Does this not usually only affect people who are a little older? Young and healthy women are supposed to be, well, young and healthy!" Ziva's mouth hung slightly agape, her mind still reeling at the confirmation of her deepest fears.

Genevieve McFadden scoffed lightly, her face twisting into a sad grimace.

"That's the thing. If there is anything, anything at all, in this world that does not discriminate, it is cancer."

The light lilt of her Scottish brogue caught on the last word. The one word that would have Ziva David's world crashing down around her.

Cancer.

It always seems so foreign until it is suddenly way too close.

"How long?" Her typically stoic demeanor shattered, her trembling voice revealed the extent of her pain.

She had to face the fact that treatment might not work.

"If the chemotherapy doesn't work, we will try an operation. If all else fails, six months past that, I guess." One pale hand dragged itself through pin-straight threads of scarlet silk and cornflower blue eyes brushed over the scans once more.

"I'm sorry, Ziva, but if the treatment does not work, your wife will not have very long."

"Does she know?"

* * *

A rich, throaty alto crept past the curtain that hid half the room from Ziva.

"Yes, Zi, I do."

It was then that the first tears made their way down two mirroring cheeks; one, meticulously polished alabaster and the other, sculpted, buffed bronze.

A sob nearly ripped its way through her throat but she forced the words out first,

"I understand if you want to leave right now, Zi. Take the kids and go if that's what you want."

Ziva's jaw really stretched itself to the limit then.

"No, Abby. I am going to stand right with you through this. Tali and Calev will as well." She reached instinctively to grasp her wife's bony hand as Abby stepped through the curtain, "I am going to love you through this, Abigail."

"But what if-"

A single finger laid itself over Abby's garnet red lips, shushing her.

"If that ever happens, I will make sure the children always know that their Mama loved them. They will always know how brave she was. How strong. How she tried all she could to stay with us but Adonai decided he needed her more."

* * *

After treatment options had been discussed and a plan mapped out, the couple had left after thanking the doctor profusely.

They left arm in arm, the raven-haired head laying on the shoulder of the brunette.

* * *

That left Genevieve McFadden slumped in her chair, head in her hand, phone to her ear.

"Vivianne, I won't be seeing patients for at least another fifteen minutes. Thanks." She told her receptionist warmly, if a little shortly. But Vivianne knew how hard this news was on her boss.

She softly rang up the next patients on the list, informing them apologetically that Doctor McFadden would only be available after lunch. That would give Genevieve an hour and fifteen minutes.

The sole photo frame on the sparsely decorated desk was picked up, a handmade cherrywood frame that held a precious photograph that was slightly frayed at the edges.

"Carlene, did you see that? Didn't it remind you of us so many years ago?" The doctor stroked the locket around her neck fondly, "They have a daughter and a son, so young. I really hope it ends better for them than it did for us."

The door quietly creaked open and a lithe figure slipped in and snaked its arms around Genevieve's neck.

"Hi Momma. Vivi said you were missing Mommy again. Did you have to tell another patient bad news?"

McFadden lightly let out a short sigh. Sometimes, her thirteen year old was just too perceptive. It must come from having lost her other mother at the tender age of seven to cancer.

She rose from her desk and laced her fingers through her daughter's. Leading the lanky form of Shannon Jacobs-McFadden out of the door of her practice and into her car, they drove the all-too-familiar route towards the all-too-familiar cemetery.

Her fingers danced over the etched letters gingerly, tracing the familiar letters that formed her late wife's name.

* * *

_Carlene Lisette Jacobs  
4th February 1968 - 11th January 2008  
No matter what, we loved each other through it_

* * *

She lifted her eyes from the headstone and glanced at the slight frame of her daughter, the spitting image of her departed mother. The corner of her eye caught on the figures standing two graves away.

That plot was still the grave of a member of Carlene's family. Barely anyone but Genevieve and Shannon visited anymore - most of the family members were already buried here. The only one she could think of was her ex mother-in-law, Joann.

She silently padded over to the three people standing there, glimpsing the name on the headstone. It was Shannon's namesake, her aunt and Carlene's dearest sister. The plot next to it was adorned with the same chrysanthemums as it was; the plot of the youngest member of the family to have been buried there, Kelly.

The silver-haired man standing in front of the graves must be Shannon's widower, Leroy, then. It had been years since Genevieve had laid eyes on that man. Years since either of their partners had passed on. Years since everything in the Jacobs family had fallen apart.

Her voice peeked out uncertain, nudging at the man with his back facing her ever so lightly.

"Leroy?"

* * *

That was a name he had not heard from anyone but his father since Shannon and Kelly passed. It was the name of the Marine from years ago. The name of the loving but absent husband and father from years ago. The name of the man yet unbridled with such pain and suffering from years ago.

No matter how many years it had been, he would never forget the voice of Shannon's favorite sister's wife. The woman who had probably come closest to understanding the hell he went through all those years before.

"Gene?" That single syllable slipped from between his lips and caused the pair of women with him to look up momentarily.

He saw the questions that flashed desperately across Abby's red-rimmed eyes and the painful memories of the past hour that flashed through Ziva's tortured ones.

* * *

Soon enough, those eyes would know the pain that the two older pairs knew all too well.


End file.
